It Begins
by Tynesider
Summary: During a late night of work the Professor finds the secret to creating super portals, and accidentally sets off the chain of events that will lead to Ripto taking over. Prequel to Ripto's Rage. OneShot.


Outside the small shack the night was still and motionless, but inside its flimsy wooden walls chaos reigned supreme. Mechanisms roared and gears clanked inside their metal housings, which slowly but surely were beginning to overheat. Thin slits in their surfaces spewed paper continuously, which stubby fingers grabbed at to feed onto eyes clamped in thin spectacles. The eyes belonged to a mole, a stressed and fatigued one wearing a lab coat, who milled about the lodge frantically as the machines surrounding him supplied data. Sweat trickled down his aged brow, but he countered this with regular swipes of his sleeve across his forehead. He had to keep working, especially now that he was this close to the answer he had spent the last three months hunting for. Sleep could wait; he didn't need it anyway. He was a mole, he lived underground where it was always dark. He could sleep whenever he wanted to. All he needed now was his brain and his machines, and by working in tandem he would soon find the elusive answer he hunted for.

He heard scraping coming from the hallway behind him and turned to face it. The weary legs of a cheetah shuffled into view, carrying a feline body wrapped in a thin blanket. His name was Hunter, and he was a prime example of nominative determinism, though not in the early hours of the morning when most were resting their weary bodies.  
>"Hey, Professor," he said, lifting a pile of papers out of a chair and seating himself, "Shouldn't you be in bed? It's late."<br>"I can stay on my feet for a very long time, Hunter, don't worry about me," the Professor replied, flicking a switch on a machine to bring it to a halt, "And sorry if my machines kept you up, it's just I'm on the verge of something big."  
>"Good to hear," Hunter said, rubbing his reddened nose, "And it's okay. I've got a bit of a cold so I'm struggling to sleep, though Elora might get a bit ratty if you wake her up. Who knows what she'll do to you if that happens?"<br>The Professor chuckled, "Well if she does, tell her she can kill me after I've found what I'm looking for. At least then I can die a happy man."  
>"What're you looking for anyway?"<br>"The calibrations for a super portal, and I reckon I've got them."  
>"Will these calibrations be like last time?" Hunter said sceptically.<br>"What do you mean?" the Professor said innocently.  
>"Don't play dumb. You know what happened four months ago. You were there, for pete's sake!"<br>"It was a slight miscalculation, and I'll admit it wasn't a great idea to use a live creature for its first test."  
>"Professor, slight miscalculations don't make a cheetah lose all his fur!" Hunter seethed, "Three weeks it took for it to grow back. Do you understand how long those weeks were?"<br>"I did apologise and I've learned from my mistake."  
>"I had to use sun cream!" Hunter said, stopping halfway through to sniff back the mucus clogging up his nostrils, "I spent the first two days of baldness looking like a tomato and the rest like I had an unhealthy obsession with mayonnaise!"<br>"Yet you were very gracious about it, and I commend you for that."

The Professor approached the only operating machine and ripped a ream of paper from it before flicking its off switch. "This should be it," he said hopefully, examining the print with his practised eyes.  
>"So if those calibrations work what will it mean for us?"<br>"All sorts of things," the Professor said, the light shining off his glasses to give his eyes a dreamy twist, "The correct calibration will increase the power of the orbs fourfold, and that gives us a wider range of transport. We could explore realms we haven't even guessed at, let alone visited!"  
>"Besides saving on shoe leather, what else is it good for?"<br>"Well, it could speed up transit times. The increased power will get you to your destination faster than the portals currently do. Now hand me that orb, will you?"  
>Hunter reached to the desk at his side and grabbed the orb that sat atop it, its curved emerald glinting in the artificial light. He handed it to his colleague as he collected three other orbs and two small hoops.<br>"I know I shouldn't experiment at this hour but I must see if this works," he said, a childlike glee echoing from his features.  
>"What're you doing?"<br>"Setting up a very basic portal," the mole replied, grabbing two small cubes with keypads on them and connecting them to the hoops through thin wires, one cube per hoop, "If the calibrations are right it'll work without altering whatever goes through it." He connected two orbs to each cube and began reading his sheet of paper again, all the while tapping furiously into the keypads as he copied the figures in his hand.

He entered the final digits and an ethereal blue-green haze appeared inside each hoop.  
>"So far so good," he smiled.<br>"Yeah," Hunter nodded appreciatively, "So what's going into it then?"  
>"My hand," the Professor said simply, "I'm feeling confident so I'm prepared to take the risk. Hold this hoop."<br>"It's your funeral," Hunter shrugged, grabbing one of the hoops, "By the way, have you written a will yet? It's just I can picture a nasty fight between Blink and your sister for your possessions if you haven't."  
>"I highly doubt putting my hand through a portal will kill me," the Professor frowned, taking the remaining hoop in his mitt, "But you never know until you try, so here goes."<br>He thrust his hand through the portal, the misty substances swallowing it effortlessly, and it instantly reappeared through Hunter's hoop. The sudden jab took Hunter by surprise, and the mole's fist caught him square in the face.  
>"Ow!" the cheetah whined dropping the hoop to clutch his stinging jaw, but his companion was oblivious to his pain.<br>"It worked!" he screamed happily, withdrawing his hand and dancing a small jig of celebration, "And no damage to my arm either! I've done it!"  
>"You just punched me in the face!" Hunter protested, but the Professor's consideration remained minimal.<br>"I'm very sorry, my dear boy, but look at the bigger picture! I've found the calibrations for a super portal! This will revolutionise Avalar!"  
>"What's all this racket?" a female voice suddenly shouted from down the hall, her words filled with malice and frustration. These undertones too were lost on the overjoyed mole.<br>"Ahh, Elora! How convenient of you to wake up! I've got the most wonderful news to tell you!"

Hunter watched the Professor dart down the corridor, massaging his throbbing face as he did so. What was the big deal about the super portal anyway? It's wasn't like they needed one desperately. Avalar was pretty well connected and were the people really crying out for transit that worked a tiny bit faster? He rubbed his sore nose again and stared at the hoops lying discarded on the floor. Something about that image worried him, a great and valuable piece of technology thrown aside like a child's toy. It seemed abusive to throw something as dangerous as that aside, and wherever there was abuse revenge was never far behind.

He stared at the portals intently, his bloodshot eyes blinking but never leaving their target. Those portals would cause nothing but trouble, and he knew it. It didn't matter that the Professor had science on his team, he simply knew the technology at his feet would cause more harm than good.

Three days later, he turned out to be right.


End file.
